OP0282-PARE WORLD ARTHRITIS DAY, A UNIQUE CAMPAIGN
Authors: C. Kyriakou Yiasoumi
Journal: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (2023)

<h3>Background</h3> Since its establishment in 1996, World Arthritis Day is celebrated every year on the 12th of October, across the world and in my country as well. Several events-campaigns, take place aiming to raise awareness among the general public, stakeholders, politicians and people with Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal diseases, health care professionals, elected officials and the relevant governmental authorities. Giving the message to the public about the early symptoms, the importance of early diagnosis, the importance of proper therapy and the importance of managing the disease is the aim of the existence of the day. Our organisation traditionally for this day, organizes big Campaigns among all the above in addition to achieve recognition of the Organization in the General Public. In 2021 for the first year, we established very successfully a new campaign called, &lt;Wear me&gt;. In this campaign, the idea was to engage People and Companies to wear a T-shirt for us. In 2022 the target was bigger than the previous year. The idea was to create text through a photo. As we all know, picture talk more to people than words. These days, with the internet overuse and Social Media's role in our lives, words and pictures pass in front of us, in hundreds every day. We wanted a strong IMAGE to make people curious about RMDs and about our organisation. <h3>Objectives</h3> The major objectives were: - To raise awareness of WAD. - To increase the Prevention of RMDs. - To make our league more popular. - To become more familiar and recognizable with our new name and logo. - T o get involved in the campaign more people than in 2021. <h3>Methods</h3> Six months before the WAD, a Task Force for the campaign was established, to build the Action Plan. Without h a very good plan, we can't have a successful campaign. After several meetings and discussions, the action plan was ready four months before the WAD.Main target: to involve 2000 People (we had 1.400 people in 2021), to wear a t-shirt with our logo on the 12th of October 2022. In addition, our prompt was to take a photo, post it on their social media, use the hashtag (#) and the name of our organisation. The Action plan had four Phases: First, contact the people and the companies, by writing two letters, one for those that they participated in the previous year to ask them to stand with us, again and the second one for new companies or people that we wanted to approach for participating in this year campaign.Second, to find funds for the campaign and for purchase the T-Shirts.Third, to deliver all the T-shirts on time and fourth, to be able to Post or Re- Post all the photos on organization's FB page. <h3>Results</h3> Our results were over and above our expectations! Achieving goals: We contact many small and medium local companies, coffee chains, hairdressing salons, gyms, physiotherapists,health insurance companies, pharmacies etc... Schools and municipality employees. We involved doctors, nurses, famous people, athletes, actors, singers, journalists, football players, athletes' teams, politicians and the president of Cyprus Parliament.A lot of TVs and Radio Channels cover the campaign, even some of them wore our T-shirts during the shows all day. We reached over and above our target of the use of T-Shirt.2700 people wore the t-shirt with the logo of our organisation, on the 12th of October 2022.The FB results were extremely positive! The organization's FB page reached 30000 views, the whole week. The FB page had an average of 213% increase in visiting compared to the previous week. <h3>Conclusion</h3> Compare to the previous year, almost twice the number of participants wore our t-shirt. Engagement on Facebook was satisfactory. The hashtag was applied as a caption to the pictures taken. There was a big discussion on social media and TV shows about the campaign. A lot of people were asking to buy the t-shirt to support our league. A lot of people were calling our offices to get information about our services and our programs. The general conclusion is that the need of raising awareness for RMDs is still high. <h3>References</h3> [1]F.B page of the Organisation [2]Assessment of action plan of WAD, 2022 <h3>Acknowledgements:</h3> NIL. <h3>Disclosure of Interests</h3> None Declared.